Before I start, let me warn you that this post will contain SPOILERS! SPOILERS, SPOILERS, and more SPOILERS!!!!!(ok, maybe not that many) If you have not finished Bioshock Infinite please do not continue to read this.

Bioshock Infinite is one of the best video game stories of this console generation. The ending for this game has incited some very interesting theories. I’ve even heard people compare one of the two main characters of the game-Elizabeth-to the main character of my favorite television show Doctor Who.

I can see how this comparison can be made seeing that she becomes an inter-dimensional, being, who and understands time and space, but I actually think this comparison is a little off. Here’s that and four other ways Bioshock has a little Doctor Who sprinkled in it.

Elizabeth is not a Time Lord; she’s more like a TARDIS.

Like I said before, this is an easy comparison to make, but Elizabeth is more TARDIS than a Time Lord.

Her dress almost looks TARDIS blue no?

Time Lords perceive time in a non-linear state. This means they can see everything that was, is, and will be. This is an ability that Elizabeth does somewhat possess, but not until the very end of the game. The Time Lord title would actually better suit the Lutece Twins.

Elizabeth has the ability to open tears into alternate timelines, basically given her the ability travel anywhere throughout time, and alternate dimensions, without the use of the Lutece machine. Time Lords on the other hand require the use of technology to travel through time.

She also is unpredictable much like the TARDIS. Opening random tears throughout the game that Booker may not fully understand, but always seems to benefit from in some way. This is similar to the way the TARDIS always seems to help take the Doctor where he needs to be.

Booker kind of regenerates, right?

Anybody familiar with Doctor Who knows that the Doctor and all Time Lords have the ability to regenerate if they are mortally wounded. When the Doctor regenerates he comes back with a different face, and a different personality.

Booker undergoes a similar transformation.

Comstock and Booker are the same person, just from two different timelines. When Booker gets baptized he completely transforms and becomes a religious fanatic, changing his appearance, most noticeably by growing a beard. Booker is more of a cold-hearted killer who wants to forget the events of his past (sounds a lot like the Doctor). Elizabeth nor Booker can make an immediate connection between the two. Yea that’s regeneration.

Never travel alone.

Another recurring theme of Doctor Who is the companion. Someone (usually a woman) who The Doctor chooses to travel with him on adventures through time and space.

Throughout most of Bioshock Infinite, there you are as Booker traveling through time with Elizabeth. You run away from monsters and other enemies much like the Doctor and his companions over the years. I would’ve enjoyed this game even if it was based entirely on this premise alone.

Handymen are a lot like Cybermen.

But I’ll keep it short and simple.

Heavy armor with with organs inside, nuff said….

Fixed Points in Time.

One recurring theme used in Doctor Who is the idea of fixed points in time. These are moments in time that have to happen and cannot be changed. This is proven in the episode “The Wedding of River Song” when time is literally brought to a halt as a result of River Song not killing the Doctor, which was a fixed point. Fixed points are a part of Bioshock Infinite as well.

After the events of war bring Booker to a baptism, in which he has to decide to either go through with it or reject it. If he accepts the baptism, he becomes the zealot leader of Columbia, Zachary Hale Comstock. If he rejects the baptism, he becomes the disconnected drunkard who sells his own offspring, Booker Dewitt. At first I thought the actual baptism represented the fixed point. However this couldn’t be the case because a fixed point couldn’t be a moment where alternate choices can be made. In a fixed point one moment must happen, the same way no matter what. So Booker wouldn’t be able to have “choices” in a fixed point.

So what is the fixed point in Bioshock Infinite? Well I would think that it has to be Booker’s involvement in the events of Wounded Knee. This is something that happens in both the timelines, so I would think that it has to happen. These events shape the man that Booker becomes for the rest of his life, no matter what. The massacre at Wounded Knee has to happen to make him go to that lake and see the opportunity for a baptism. So I would qualify the events of Wounded Knee as a fixed point.

That’s all I have for now. If you guys have any other comparisons you see between Doctor Who and Bioshock Infinite, feel free to leave a comment or two.

Earlier last year when one of my best friends told me that he wanted to purchase a PS3, I immediately rattled off a list of Sony exclusives that I thought he should check out. I also told him that he would be able to get most of these titles for a bargain bin prices because they had already been out for so long. As I read off the list I compiled for him, I started to think about how much I enjoyed these games and how much he would enjoy them. Although it wasn’t a PS3 exclusive, I suggested that he try out Mass Effect 2, and eventually 3. Out of all the games I listed the ME sequels interested him the most. I knew he had made the right choice, I knew he would enjoy it, and the gamer in me envied him from then on.

Why was I jealous, I’ve played through both titles a total of six times now? I’ve built a male and Femshep and enjoyed all play-throughs equally, constantly trying to challenge myself to make different decisions along the way. Romancing Jack, getting all my people back home alive, deciding to keep the Reaper at the end and giving it to Cerberus. All that was in the first ME alone and he had it all waiting for him.

All the possibilities that I had exhausted were waiting for him after he watched the resurrection of atmosphere charred Sheppard. How would he design his Shepard? In what order would he recruit his squad-mates? These were all questions I considered asking him. Hell, I even though about giving him some suggestions on how he should go about playing the game. I quickly realized that it wouldn’t be fair because I didn’t want to alter his personal experience with the game.

My envy was apparent by then. I was like a 40 year mid-lifer watching a 21 year old college grad with the whole world ahead of him. In this case he had the whole galaxy ahead of him. All those planets, all that tedious mining he would come to hate but love the benefits it gave him. Trying to find the balance he needed to keep his Shepard from renegade or intentionally pushing his Shepard over the punching the reporter in the Citadel along the way. This was an experience that was could be experienced in so many ways, but nothing could compare to the first time.

Ultimately I was happy for him, and I knew this was just one more of my friends I could talk about the experience and universe that makes up the Mass Effect experience. He told me he would wait before jumping into the third game. I said to him, “Yea, you do that… you lucky bastard”.